1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a storage method and device and an information processing method and apparatus based on a novel principle of operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional semiconductor memories store information by accumulating electrons in memory cells. That is, it can be said that conventional semiconductor memories have the basic mechanism that information is held statically.
Conventional semiconductor memories of the above kind have a problem that the influence of thermal noise becomes more remarkable and stored data is rendered less stable as the degree of miniaturization of a device increases, which obstructs high-density storage. Further, conventional semiconductor memories consume much power because a sufficient number of electrons to surpass thermal noise are needed for storage. Therefore, it is substantially impossible to realize, in the form of a semiconductor memory, a system connecting a number of storage elements equivalent to, for example, brain cells of a living body.
An object of the present invention is therefore to provide a storage method and device which enables information to be stored stably at a high density with low power consumption without being influenced by thermal noise, as well as an information processing method and apparatus utilizing such a storage method.
The present inventors have conducted concentrated studies to solve the above problems in the art. Those studies will be summarized below.
The inventors have conducted various studies by making full use of computer simulation technologies based on various physical models, and have found a storage method based on a novel principle of operation that is entirely different than in conventional methods, as well as an information processing method utilizing such a storage method. These methods have features that include a diffusion process and a dissipation process of information carriers such as electrons, and at least one of the diffusion and dissipation processes being nonlinear. By virtue of the inclusion of those processes, input information that is input as a pattern is converted autonomously to a stable dynamic pattern such as a rotating spiral pattern and the information is stored in the form of the dynamic pattern. The formation of such a dynamic pattern has been verified by computer simulations. Specifically, the dynamic pattern is a charge distribution state, for example. The operation that a dynamic pattern is formed autonomously is based on the basic principle that the system tends to make a transition to a state that is stable in terms of energy. In this method, information is stored in the form of a dynamic pattern; in other words, information is stored with extension to the time-axis direction. Therefore, in contrast to conventional semiconductor memories that are based on spatially fixed storage, the method of the present invention enables storage of extremely low power consumption and a high density because it is essentially resistant to thermal noise and requires an extremely small number of information carriers per unit of information.
The present invention has been conceived based on the above studies of the inventors.
To attain the above object, according to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a storage method comprising the steps of diffusing information carriers; and dissipating the information carriers.
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a storage method comprising the steps of inputting information in the form of information carriers; biasing the input information carriers; comparing a number of the input information carriers with a predetermined threshold value, and dissipating the information carriers for a predetermined time if the number of the input carriers exceeds the threshold value; and diffusing the information carriers, whereby the input information is converted to a pattern that is periodic in time.
According to a third aspect of the invention, there is provided a storage device which stores information by utilizing diffusion and dissipation of information carriers.
According to a fourth aspect of the invention, there is provided a storage device comprising means for inputting a distribution of information carriers; information accumulating means having a plurality of information accumulating sections for storing the information carriers in accordance with the input distribution of the information carriers; information carrier diffusing means for diffusing the information carriers accumulated in the information accumulating sections by at least one of an external action and an interaction between the information accumulating sections; information carrier dissipating means for dissipating the information carriers accumulated in the information accumulating sections; and means for outputting a distribution of the information carriers.
According to a fifth aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing method comprising the steps of diffusing information carriers; and dissipating the information carriers.
According to a sixth aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing method comprising the steps of inputting information in the form of information carriers; controlling diffusion and dissipation of the input information carriers independently of each other; and outputting information.
According to a seventh aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing method comprising the steps of inputting information in the form of information carriers; and converting the input information into a pattern that is periodic in time by giving a predetermined bias to the input carriers.
According to an eighth aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing method comprising the steps of inputting information in the form of information carriers; biasing the input information carriers; comparing a number of the input information carriers with a predetermined threshold value, and dissipating the information carriers for a predetermined time if the number of the input carriers exceeds the threshold value; and diffusing the information carriers, whereby the input information is converted to a pattern that is periodic in time.
According to a ninth aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing method comprising the steps of inputting information in the form of information carriers; biasing the input information carriers; comparing a number of the input information carriers with a predetermined threshold value, and dissipating the information carriers for a predetermined time if the number of the input carriers exceeds the threshold value; diffusing the information carriers; converting the input information to a pattern that is periodic in time; and processing the pattern.
The processing to be performed on the pattern that is periodic in time includes general operations as well as pattern comparison, filtering, etc.
According to a 10th aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing method comprising the steps of accumulating information carriers in a plurality of information accumulating sections; changing the information carriers accumulated in the information accumulating sections by at least one of an external action and an interaction between the information accumulating sections; dissipating, when information carriers accumulated in any of the information accumulating sections satisfy a predetermined condition, the information carriers accumulated there; and outputting information.
According to an 11th aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus which stores information by utilizing diffusion and dissipation of information carriers and performs information processing by using the stored information.
According to a 12th aspect of the invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus comprising means for inputting a distribution of information carriers; information accumulating means having a plurality of information accumulating sections for storing the information carriers in accordance with the input distribution of the information carriers; information carrier diffusing means for diffusing the information carriers accumulated in the information accumulating sections by at least one of an external action and an interaction between the information accumulating sections; information carrier dissipating means for dissipating the information carriers accumulated in the information accumulating sections; and means for outputting a distribution of the information carriers.
In the invention, basically the information carrier may be anything and may or may not have charge. Specific examples of the information carrier are an electron and an ion.
In the invention, at least one of the diffusion and the dissipation processes is nonlinear. It is most typical that both of them are nonlinear. A typical example of the pattern that is periodic in time is a rotating spiral pattern on the time axis.
In the invention having the above constitution, for example, information is input as a distribution of information carriers and autonomously converted to a dynamic pattern such as a rotating spiral pattern through information carrier diffusion and dissipation processes. The input information is stored because the dynamic pattern is conserved.